The Poetry Playground

Mirror

A white room and a party going on
and I was standing with some friends
under a large gilt-framed mirror
that tilted slightly forward
over the fireplace.
We were drinking whiskey
and some of us, feeling no pain,
were trying to decide
what precise shade of yellow
the setting sun turned our drinks.
I closed my eyes briefly,
then looked up in the mirror:
a woman in a green dress leaned
against the far wall.
She seemed distracted,
the fingers of one hand
fidgeted with her necklace,
and she was staring into the mirror,
not at me, but past me, into a space
that might be filled by someone
yet to arrive, who at that moment
could be starting the journey
which would lead eventually to her.
Then, suddenly, my friends
said it was time to move on.
This was years ago,
and though I have forgotten
where we went and who we all were,
I still recall that moment of looking up
and seeing the woman stare past me
into a place I could only imagine,
and each time it is with a pang,
as if just then I were stepping
from the depths of the mirror
into that white room, breathless and eager,
only to discover too late
that she is not there.

~ Mark Strand

Speed Walking on August 31, 2013

Nothing much to report this morning
as if anyone were waiting to hear,
putting the day on hold like,

just a few women jogging by,
girls with their eyes lowered,
and a few men, their awkward hellos.

The squirrels don’t really count
because of their ubiquity,
but there was the one brown rabbit

frozen up ahead on the cinder path,
immobile as a painting of a brown rabbit,
so I stopped and tried to be

as still as a pencil drawing of a man,
and maybe a half a minute passed
before he bounced himself into the weeds.

Was that you Seamus,
coming to pay me a little visit?
Who else could it possibly be?

I asked with confidence.
Not Robert Penn Warren surely.
No, only you with your eye still bright.

~ Billy Collins

Shadow-Bride

There was a man who dwelt alone,
as day and night went past
he sat as still as carven stone,
and yet no shadow cast.
The white owls perched upon his head
beneath the winter moon;
they wiped their beaks and thought him dead
under the stars of June.

There came a lady clad in grey
in the twilight shining:
one moment she would stand and stay,
her hair with flowers entwining.
He woke, as had he sprung of stone,
and broke the spell that bound him;
he clasped her fast, both flesh and bone,
and wrapped her shadow round him.

There never more she walks her ways
by sun or moon or star;
she dwells belowwhere neither days
nor any nights there are.
But once a year when caverns yawn
and hidden things awake,
they dance together then till dawn
and a single shadow make.

~ J.R.R. Tolkien

The Chameleon

I caught a chameleon lizard
in my backyard,
and to please myself
I moved him from a green leaf
to a tree’s brown bark,
then to my yellow porch
where he froze in my hand,
his eyes fixed on me
as if waiting for me to change.

But I stayed the same.

I stayed the same,
and kept him behind a screen
until he had given me
all his colors.

Then I opened the door,
but he wouldn’t move.
He just kept his eyes on me –
as if waiting for me to change.

~ Judith Ortiz Cofer

The Wisdom of the Geese

The geese are displeased.
They want to invent the snow.

Each has swallowed
a whole pitcher of light.

Stuffed with brightness,
they can hardly move.

As they waddle through tall grass
they drop feathers, quaint clues,

like the arch humor of ferns.
Something wakes the pond, wrinkling it.

It’s bad luck to look back.
They step off into dark water.

~ Nancy Willard

Too Young to Know

One day, my father chopped down
The old apricot tree
Which used to live in my parents backyard.
My father deflected my anger at him
With a look I heard Muddy Waters sing:
Y’all too young to know.

When I went to my mother
For the truth,
I only heard
What he must have told her:
A vague story about roots
and basement pipes,
A vague story about branches
and kitchen windows,
Punctuated by a shrug which meant:
He just does what he does.

The blues don’t know nothing about trees
Unless, of course,
It’s enlisted the moon
To drag some shadows around,
Unless, of course,
Something jumps up
Out of a hollow log,
A worry you didn’t need
To cross your path.

My father’s gone,
The tree’s a stump,
And I’m still too young to know
If one day, I’ll glance
out my window
At the sycamore,
And cluck my teeth.

~ Cornelius Eady

Wish

In my dream, my car is an aquarium.
I’m on the hood, prone, looking in,
wondering how I could ever drive again.

It’s evening, my interior lit with tropical fish
& desire for a new life. I didn’t know
I was this tired. I place my forehead

against the windshield, close my eyes, & wish
for you know what. In the beginning, friend,
every word was a dreaming plant or animal

until our traffic changed everything, but something
seems to be happening for the better, now,
if only it’s not too late. I fall asleep

against this glass until I wake, a few
guppies & angels convulsing in the drying soul
of the world until our ecstasy, &/or our end.

~ William Heyen